Xbox One comes bundled with free Titanfall download starting March 11

Bundle comes in at standard $499, while the UK gets a price drop as well.

Microsoft seems determined to highlight EA and Respawn's Titanfall as the must-have title of the season for the Xbox One. The company today announced that a bundle including an Xbox One console and a download code for Titanfall will be available for a "limited time" starting March 11, all at the system's current asking price of $499.

"To celebrate the launch of Titanfall, we wanted to do something special," Xbox Corporate VP of Marketing, Strategy, and Business Yusuf Mehdi said in a statement. "For those of you who are already fans of Xbox One, we hope this will encourage more of your friends to join you on day one for Titanfall on Xbox One. If you’ve been waiting for the biggest game of the generation before purchasing your Xbox One, this special, limited time offer is perfect for you."

Further Reading

The upcoming bundle will include everything that comes standard in the current game-free Xbox One box, including a Kinect sensor, mono chat headset, and a one-month trial of Xbox Live. Somewhat surprisingly, the bundle comes with a standard Xbox One controller and not the limited edition Titanfall-branded controller that is already available for preorder.

The bundle will retail for €499 in Europe and £399 in the UK, the latter representing an official price drop of £30 in the region. UK retailers had widely started dropping the selling price of the Xbox One unofficially around the country, however, so customers may not notice a difference.

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I get the feeling that this won't push too many console sales, Titanfall has been so heavily promoted to this point that those interested in playing it on Xbox One likely already own the console. It's close enough to the launch window that I don't think it would have deterred interest buyers that much from staving off the Xbox One purchase until now.

I get the feeling that this won't push too many console sales, Titanfall has been so heavily promoted to this point that those interested in playing it on Xbox One likely already own the console. It's close enough to the launch window that I don't think it would have deterred interest buyers that much from staving off the Xbox One purchase until now.

Agreed. If MS wants to start moving consoles they need to first remove the kinect from the bundle and drop the price to $350. PS4 already has all of the momentum and MS will need to do something really significant to change that.

Their console is underpowered compared to the PS4 and costs 25% more than the PS4. MS needs to start behaving like the underdog fighting for market share again. Their biggest problem is they thought they had the PS4 beat before they even launched, which is where the arrogance of the "no used games" thing started.

If they wanted to do something special, all current Xbox owners on and before March 11th get a free Titanfall code. Or include the Controller with it. This just seems to be a rushed bundle they quickly came up with.

Why not a actual bundle with a the Titanfall controller and maybe a skinned One? For a game with no local MP, how many people really want to spend money on an extra controller? I guess if you planned on getting one for other games, its a nice opportunity to get a skinned one.

I have my doubts they would be doing this if they were ahead of the PS4.

This seems pretty quick after launch (what is it, 4 months?) to not backfill all of the currently bought xbone owners. pretty much saying screw you to all of the adopters buying the console early to help bug fix before the real titles came to market

Sorry but even as a Xbox One owner, the fail of the console so far is too much to overcome. And after playing in the beta of Titanfall, this bundle isn't likely to help.

I'm starting to doubt you even own an XB1. You've been bashing it since before it was released. And you just posted last week that your Xbox is sitting unplugged in a cabinet. You didn't post anything at all about the Titanfall Beta until today.

Feel free to post your Gamertag or a screenshot from Smartglass of your Titanfall in recent items.

I get the feeling that this won't push too many console sales, Titanfall has been so heavily promoted to this point that those interested in playing it on Xbox One likely already own the console. It's close enough to the launch window that I don't think it would have deterred interest buyers that much from staving off the Xbox One purchase until now.

Agreed. If MS wants to start moving consoles they need to first remove the kinect from the bundle and drop the price to $350. PS4 already has all of the momentum and MS will need to do something really significant to change that.

Their console is underpowered compared to the PS4 and costs 25% more than the PS4. MS needs to start behaving like the underdog fighting for market share again. Their biggest problem is they thought they had the PS4 beat before they even launched, which is where the arrogance of the "no used games" thing started.

I think the Kinect is too rooted in the X1's OS to justify bringing it out. Instead I think MS should focus on why it's needed so much. There really isn't a good game for it. Xbox fitness is nice but it's hard to sell on fitness products. Voice commands are good, but that's not worth the price differential, for most people. Maybe I'm the only one who likes it. I like to compare it to the windows button on a keyboard. Not needed to do things on a PC, but when you use it and really get to know it, you'd hate if it was gone.

Things like Illumiroom, VR, etc would help sell the console. But people would need to know that this is coming and that they have a solid plan in place. Their vision has lacked, there's no denying that. On top of doing a complete turn around on the architecture of the box after the always online scandal, it's really a miracle the thing worked as well as it did when it launched. Hopefully E3 brings a stronger and more planned Xbox roadmap.

Microsoft seems determined to highlight EA and Respawn's Titanfall as the must-have title of the season for the Xbox One. The company today announced that a bundle including an Xbox One console and a download code for Titanfall will be available for a "limited time" starting March 11, all at the system's current asking price of $499.

...

The bundle will retail for €499 in Europe and £399 in the UK, the latter representing an official price drop of £30 in the region. UK retailers had widely started dropping the selling price of the Xbox One unofficially around the country, however, so customers may not notice a difference.

Subtext: XB1 sales suck, and MS is desperate to not let Sony get too far ahead.

Sorry but even as a Xbox One owner, the fail of the console so far is too much to overcome. And after playing in the beta of Titanfall, this bundle isn't likely to help.

I'm starting to doubt you even own an XB1. You've been bashing it since before it was released. And you just posted last week that your Xbox is sitting unplugged in a cabinet. You didn't post anything at all about the Titanfall Beta until today.

Feel free to post your Gamertag or a screenshot from Smartglass of your Titanfall in recent items.

I agree. As much as I hate the XBox One, pretending you have one so you can say how much you hate it and have your words carry more weight is low and dishonest. Also most purchasers of products like this (be it PS4, WiiU, or XBox One) will defend it and claim its the best thing ever even if its just to convince themselves. I find it hard to believe anyone that claims to own (any of the above) and thinks its trash and continually complains about it.

Did Microsoft force them to buy it? General consensus on next-gen consoles is that there was no rush to get either, so anyone who bought one and ends up disappointed a few months later by a price drop or a bundle has no one but themselves to blame – especially if they bought an Xbox One, as the higher-priced console almost always is quicker to drop price and/or offer deals. There’s always going to be a price to being an early adopter, especially when the thing you’re early-adopting is priced higher than the competition.

I get the feeling that this won't push too many console sales, Titanfall has been so heavily promoted to this point that those interested in playing it on Xbox One likely already own the console. It's close enough to the launch window that I don't think it would have deterred interest buyers that much from staving off the Xbox One purchase until now.

Sony learned last gen that single titles, no matter how anticipated, don't sell enough consoles to make a difference. Not even MGS4 turned things around for the PS3, by itself.

Well, that's a considerable improvement over the PS4 offers I've seen here, such as the "Limited Killzone edition", that literally has absolutely nothing else but Killzone bundled in and a 600€ price tag. Now that they've ran out of this incredible limited edition, they're offering PS4+Knack at an affordable 590€.

Obviously the basic 450€ console without bundled games has been out of stock since christmas.

But I suspect this is just local vendor shenanigans, trying to take advantage of weak availability to move some games at ridiculous prices.

I get the feeling that this won't push too many console sales, Titanfall has been so heavily promoted to this point that those interested in playing it on Xbox One likely already own the console. It's close enough to the launch window that I don't think it would have deterred interest buyers that much from staving off the Xbox One purchase until now.

I dunno. I don't really subscribe to the idea that everyone interested in Titanfall would have bought a console before the game is out. Surely there's a significant group of people waiting for the game's release to jump in. Also, there's bound to yet be a pretty big group of casual gamers who are just now starting to hear about the game and that group will grow after release as more and more people talk. That's how games work - see also: sequels selling more than their predecessors. This will definitely move more hardware than if it had not been done. But as to how much, who knows.

Sorry but even as a Xbox One owner, the fail of the console so far is too much to overcome. And after playing in the beta of Titanfall, this bundle isn't likely to help.

I'm starting to doubt you even own an XB1. You've been bashing it since before it was released. And you just posted last week that your Xbox is sitting unplugged in a cabinet. You didn't post anything at all about the Titanfall Beta until today.

Feel free to post your Gamertag or a screenshot from Smartglass of your Titanfall in recent items.

I agree. As much as I hate the XBox One, pretending you have one so you can say how much you hate it and have your words carry more weight is low and dishonest. Also most purchasers of products like this (be it PS4, WiiU, or XBox One) will defend it and claim its the best thing ever even if its just to convince themselves. I find it hard to believe anyone that claims to own (any of the above) and thinks its trash and continually complains about it.

Yea, if you hate it that much sell it someone else.

If spending $500 on an under-powered console is stupid, spending $500 on an under-powered console that you don't play must be INSANE!

I get the feeling that this won't push too many console sales, Titanfall has been so heavily promoted to this point that those interested in playing it on Xbox One likely already own the console. It's close enough to the launch window that I don't think it would have deterred interest buyers that much from staving off the Xbox One purchase until now.

Agreed. If MS wants to start moving consoles they need to first remove the kinect from the bundle and drop the price to $350. PS4 already has all of the momentum and MS will need to do something really significant to change that.

Pretty much this. I wouldn't mind an Xbox One. It seems like a decent system and will probably have good games (even in the launch lineup, Dead Rising 3 certainly looks decent). But I am not going to pay an extra $100 for some stupid piece of hardware (Kinect) that I never wanted and won't use. If Microsoft wants to push it, that's fine, but then they need to eat the cost in order to achieve parity with their competitor.

I don't care if they bundle in Titanfall. I play shooters on the PC. But I do care about being forced to buy accessories I don't want, and until Microsoft stops doing that I won't own an Xbox One.

This seems pretty quick after launch (what is it, 4 months?) to not backfill all of the currently bought xbone owners. pretty much saying screw you to all of the adopters buying the console early to help bug fix before the real titles came to market

Its the early adopters (the big shooter and MS/XBox fans) that are likely to purchase Titanfall (many got the console in anticipation) so if they did this, they would lose the majority of their Titanfall sales (at least their XBox One Titanfall sales).

Did Microsoft force them to buy it? General consensus on next-gen consoles is that there was no rush to get either, so anyone who bought one and ends up disappointed a few months later by a price drop or a bundle has no one but themselves to blame – especially if they bought an Xbox One, as the higher-priced console almost always is quicker to drop price and/or offer deals. There’s always going to be a price to being an early adopter, especially when the thing you’re early-adopting is priced higher than the competition.

MS has been promoting the ever-loving fuck out of Titanfall ever since E3. They've been telling people to buy XB1 because it was the only next-gen platform that could play Titanfall. And now, four months after launch, they're rewarding all the people that bought a XB1 in anticipation of Titanfall "Fuck you, you don't get free Titanfall with your XB1 because you bought it too early, just like we told you to."

Did Microsoft force them to buy it? General consensus on next-gen consoles is that there was no rush to get either, so anyone who bought one and ends up disappointed a few months later by a price drop or a bundle has no one but themselves to blame – especially if they bought an Xbox One, as the higher-priced console almost always is quicker to drop price and/or offer deals. There’s always going to be a price to being an early adopter, especially when the thing you’re early-adopting is priced higher than the competition.

Certainly not, but you lose a lot of trust in your most faithful customers when you pull a move like this. The price drop is one thing, but throwing the most anticipated game for the system in as well? 3 months after launch?

Titanfall seemed great in the beta, if they can bring a few more areas I'll bite (for PC). This is a great marketing idea for Microsoft, but they're still overpriced even including the value of the game ($59.99).

To all the early adopters, what did you expect? This is what Microsoft always does to early adopters.

Did Microsoft force them to buy it? General consensus on next-gen consoles is that there was no rush to get either, so anyone who bought one and ends up disappointed a few months later by a price drop or a bundle has no one but themselves to blame – especially if they bought an Xbox One, as the higher-priced console almost always is quicker to drop price and/or offer deals. There’s always going to be a price to being an early adopter, especially when the thing you’re early-adopting is priced higher than the competition.

MS has been promoting the ever-loving fuck out of Titanfall ever since E3. They've been telling people to buy XB1 because it was the only next-gen platform that could play Titanfall. And now, four months after launch, they're rewarding all the people that bought a XB1 in anticipation of Titanfall "Fuck you, you don't get free Titanfall with your XB1 because you bought it too early, just like we told you to."

I'm just saying, maybe people should've thought for themselves? Microsoft has been telling people to buy an XB1 for Titanfall, but it's not like there's any rush to get an XB1. It's not exactly selling out, so getting ahold of a console is pretty easy.

I understand early adopter frustration, but this literally almost always happens with any new gadget - the smart money has always been on waiting unless there's something about the device that makes you need it today.

I bought a PS4 on launch fully knowing that, financially, it probably wasn't the best decision - I just love cool tech and couldn't resist.

Did Microsoft force them to buy it? General consensus on next-gen consoles is that there was no rush to get either, so anyone who bought one and ends up disappointed a few months later by a price drop or a bundle has no one but themselves to blame – especially if they bought an Xbox One, as the higher-priced console almost always is quicker to drop price and/or offer deals. There’s always going to be a price to being an early adopter, especially when the thing you’re early-adopting is priced higher than the competition.

Certainly not, but you lose a lot of trust in your most faithful customers when you pull a move like this. The price drop is one thing, but throwing the most anticipated game for the system in as well? 3 months after launch?

Generally, the kind of people who will rush to buy something this soon (i.e., early adopters) get so excited by new toys that, even if they get burned on this now, they'll get forget it when the next new thing they want comes out. I should know, because I'm one of them.

Knew I was eventually going to get an Xbox One to join my PS4, this was exactly what I needed to make the jump. Was planning on playing Titanfall on PC if at all, but I'll take it for free on the console.

Did Microsoft force them to buy it? General consensus on next-gen consoles is that there was no rush to get either, so anyone who bought one and ends up disappointed a few months later by a price drop or a bundle has no one but themselves to blame – especially if they bought an Xbox One, as the higher-priced console almost always is quicker to drop price and/or offer deals. There’s always going to be a price to being an early adopter, especially when the thing you’re early-adopting is priced higher than the competition.

MS has been promoting the ever-loving fuck out of Titanfall ever since E3. They've been telling people to buy XB1 because it was the only next-gen platform that could play Titanfall. And now, four months after launch, they're rewarding all the people that bought a XB1 in anticipation of Titanfall "Fuck you, you don't get free Titanfall with your XB1 because you bought it too early, just like we told you to."

I'm just saying, maybe people should've thought for themselves? Microsoft has been telling people to buy an XB1 for Titanfall, but it's not like there's any rush to get an XB1. It's not exactly selling out, so getting ahold of a console is pretty easy.

I understand early adopter frustration, but this literally almost always happens with any new gadget - the smart money has always been on waiting unless there's something about the device that makes you need it today.

I bought a PS4 on launch fully knowing that, financially, it probably wasn't the best decision - I just love cool tech and couldn't resist.

But you're not countering the point. Early adopters are right to feel burnt by this move.

This makes sense I guess... It offsets the fact that you have to pay $60 a year just to play Titanfall at all. The game looks alright but without a single player story I have almost no interest in it myself.

I get the feeling that this won't push too many console sales, Titanfall has been so heavily promoted to this point that those interested in playing it on Xbox One likely already own the console. It's close enough to the launch window that I don't think it would have deterred interest buyers that much from staving off the Xbox One purchase until now.

Agreed. If MS wants to start moving consoles they need to first remove the kinect from the bundle and drop the price to $350. PS4 already has all of the momentum and MS will need to do something really significant to change that.

Their console is underpowered compared to the PS4 and costs 25% more than the PS4. MS needs to start behaving like the underdog fighting for market share again. Their biggest problem is they thought they had the PS4 beat before they even launched, which is where the arrogance of the "no used games" thing started.

I think the Kinect is too rooted in the X1's OS to justify bringing it out. Instead I think MS should focus on why it's needed so much. There really isn't a good game for it. Xbox fitness is nice but it's hard to sell on fitness products. Voice commands are good, but that's not worth the price differential, for most people. Maybe I'm the only one who likes it. I like to compare it to the windows button on a keyboard. Not needed to do things on a PC, but when you use it and really get to know it, you'd hate if it was gone.

Things like Illumiroom, VR, etc would help sell the console. But people would need to know that this is coming and that they have a solid plan in place. Their vision has lacked, there's no denying that. On top of doing a complete turn around on the architecture of the box after the always online scandal, it's really a miracle the thing worked as well as it did when it launched. Hopefully E3 brings a stronger and more planned Xbox roadmap.

Can someone who has an XB1 talk about what it's like to use it with the Kinect disconnected? How much do you lose?

Did Microsoft force them to buy it? General consensus on next-gen consoles is that there was no rush to get either, so anyone who bought one and ends up disappointed a few months later by a price drop or a bundle has no one but themselves to blame – especially if they bought an Xbox One, as the higher-priced console almost always is quicker to drop price and/or offer deals. There’s always going to be a price to being an early adopter, especially when the thing you’re early-adopting is priced higher than the competition.

Certainly not, but you lose a lot of trust in your most faithful customers when you pull a move like this. The price drop is one thing, but throwing the most anticipated game for the system in as well? 3 months after launch?

Generally, the kind of people who will rush to buy something this soon (i.e., early adopters) get so excited by new toys that, even if they get burned on this now, they'll get forget it when the next new thing they want comes out. I should know, because I'm one of them.

I am one of them as well, but this is a particularly early price drop/bundle situation. The closest example in history was the PS3, which dropped $100 after E3 in July 2007, nearly 9 months after the PS3 launched. Considering the unique circumstances of all the bad press Microsoft has had and it would be an easy PR win to throw SOME kind of bone to early adopters...maybe some free TF DLC?

To all of the Xbox fans who have already purchased an Xbox One - Microsoft wants you to tell your friends to go out and buy an Xbox One and get a FREE copy of Titanfall and not be a sucker like you who has to pay full price for Titanfall. This is your reward for being loyal to Microsoft.

Did Microsoft force them to buy it? General consensus on next-gen consoles is that there was no rush to get either, so anyone who bought one and ends up disappointed a few months later by a price drop or a bundle has no one but themselves to blame – especially if they bought an Xbox One, as the higher-priced console almost always is quicker to drop price and/or offer deals. There’s always going to be a price to being an early adopter, especially when the thing you’re early-adopting is priced higher than the competition.

They didn't force me to buy it. They begged me to buy it. Then turned around and laughed. It's a dick move. But no big, I've had fun with it the last couple months, and I'm more likely to play Titanfall on PC than XB1.

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Voice commands are good, but that's not worth the price differential, for most people.

They're good in theory, but I wonder if I'm the only one who constantly has their Kintect responding to voice commands from the media I'm playing (generally in games). Like, the announcer in FIFA will announce the other team is making a substitution, then my substitution menu will come up and not go away.